Negative Capability
by debbiechan
Summary: Written in response to a request from the UlquiHime Kink Meme at LJ. Negative Capability is a theory of the poet John Keats describing the capacity for accepting uncertainty and the unresolved. Orihime, Ulquiorra, a little Ichigo.


**Negative Capability**

by debbiechan

Description: NC-17, UlquiHime .Written in response to a request from the UlquiHime Kink Meme at LJ.* Take note I didn't follow the request exactly, merely used it as a prompt. The kink was already claimed, so I picked it with the full knowledge that I tend to take these things and twist them to my own devices. I may not exactly fulfill the requester's desires but I hope some UlquiHime and other Bleach fans take pleasure in this short piece.

Disclaimer: Kubo Tite owns the characters of Ulquiorra and Orihime, not I, and he doesn't write the pronz-he just inspires it _by being ten times as kinky with innuendo than most people could be with naked sex stuff in your face._

**Negative Capability** _is a theory of the poet John Keats describing the capacity for accepting uncertainty and the unresolved._

On the way to the Kurosaki home, as the evening got darker and the moon rose, Orihime noticed that her tip of her nose hurt.

She touched it, and there was blood. _Wha-?_ There was blood on her forehead too, right where her eyebrows met.

Then she remembered that she'd walked into a pole when talking on her cell-phone to Sado-kun. _Strange._ Why was she bleeding now and not before?

When Karin answered the door and said that her brother was out, Orihime said she'd wait.

"But we don't know when he'll show up these days," Karin said. "Sometimes he doesn't come home at all."

"Karin!" Yuzu protested. "She came all this way and it's already dark!"

Orihime stammered that she didn't want to impose, but at her insistence that Ichigo would be home soon and that she had something very important to discuss with him, the sisters gave one other strange looks and gave Orihime even stranger looks. When Yuzu asked about the blood on Orihime's face, Orihime wiped it away, saying "oh I walked into a pole" and at that touch, the wounds healed.

After the girls went to bed because they had school in the morning, Orihime sank against the sofa cushions and exhaled hard. _Strange, strange, strangeness ever since…._

She felt beads of sweat rise on her forehead, felt to wipe them and then saw blood on her fingers.

S_omething's wrong with my powers!_

Orihime stood up in a panic then fell back, breathing hard, onto the sofa. _It's going to be ok. Yes, yes, soon Kurosaki-kun will be here. He's coming._

She'd sensed the mysterious reiatsu for a while now-the familiar spiritual signature of Kurosaki Ichigo, strong yet somehow wavering. Orihime felt that it was the reiatsu itself that was getting lost and not her own perception that was weakened. Ever since the man who called himself _Tsukishima_ had cut her, Orihime had felt her senses altered, but if there was one capability of hers that had never faltered before it was being able to sense Kurosaki-kun.

Y_es, he's coming here._

She was sure that Kurosaki-kun would have answers. She hadn't wanted to worry him the evening Tsukishima's attack happened, but soon afterwards Orihime had sensed the peculiar fluctuations in Kurosaki-kun's reiatsu, as if he were in some kind of trouble, and then she'd lost the signal-only to recover it and lose it again every few hours.

On impulse, Orihime's hand covered her heart.

I _need to know if he's ok._

She'd felt his reiatsu approaching the family home and followed it here but she hadn't felt it for a good half hour now. Knowing it was improper but believing it would help her sense him better, she rose and found herself walking up the stairs to Kurosaki-kun's bedroom.

The flush of heat and excitement that swept over her entire body the moment she entered the room took her by surprise. She was all alone now. She hadn't even been this flustered when she was in this bedroom not long ago with Kurosaki-kun for some friendly bread and tea.

"I've been waiting for you," pronounced a deep, sonorous voice.

Orihime didn't scream.

Her already over-charged nerves made it difficult for her to process the moments following, but she felt her fingers to her pins, felt her heart pounding under her hand.

H_e's an imposter! But you have to be sure. Don't shoot. Not yet._

"You've been waiting for me too," the imposter said. "The reiatsu you've been following is mine."

"You're-you're-" Orihime's voice was raspy and small. She blinked clouds from her eyes. The imposter was still there.

She felt the reiatsu of Kurosaki Ichigo but she saw the face of Ulquiorra.

It was Ulquiorra all right. It was _him_. A slight figure wearing human clothes, a simple long-sleeved shirt and jeans, sitting on the bed. His expression as solemn as when Orihime had seen it last. How could it not be _him?_ Black hair, green eyes, two thin lines tracking down a white face.

"But you-" Orihime didn't trust her senses anymore. She had seen Ulquiorra blow away in the wind. Her heart had called out to him and had been answered with grief.

Ulquiorra, if this were truly him, looked puzzled. "Why are you frightened now? You brought me here."

Orihime noticed that her hand over her heart was trembling. _Wha-? _It was ridiculous how much the hand itself shook. Even as she took notice of this fact, her hand start to flap like a wing. Maybe she was having a seizure.

In a flash, Ulquiorra was standing before her, and his hand was covering hers.

"Ulquiorra?"

They were eye to eye.

Orihime was so confused. She didn't know what her heart wanted. She didn't know where she stood anymore. She remembered events of the past not as plain facts and clear images but as frightening feelings: _Who is Tsukishima? Why is Ulquiorra here? Kurosaki-kun, I need you—_

"I wanted to touch you," Ulquiorra said simply. His hand over hers was very still although Orihime felt a human pulse against hers. An Arrancar's hand would be cold, right? This hand felt human and warm.

Orihime realized that she was no longer trembling.

"The battle is over," Ulquiorra continued. Whatever was left of the reiatsu signature of Kurosaki Ichigo was wafting away from Orihime's perception. "I lost. He won."

"I don't understand." Orihime put her other hand over the hand that covered hers. She had wanted to touch Ulquiorra too. "The battle in Hueco Mundo? With Kurosaki-kun?"

"He won," Ulquiorra said, bringing his face closer.

He looked so human. Orihime noticed small pink veins in the whites of his eyes and her own astounded reflection in the deep green pupils.

Ulquiorra's next words were spoken in a whisper, but they tore Orihime's senses apart: _"I lost the battle, but I won't lose you."_

She had wanted to hold onto him so badly then. She had tried, with all her might and all her resolve, to will him back that day among the sands of Hueco Mundo, but it had not been meant to be. She had believed she just wasn't strong enough.

Neither his lips on her neck or his hand over her breast surprised her now. Every gesture of her own seemed to follow too; all she wanted was to hold onto him. The heat that had surprised her when she first walked into this room lessened and her shoulders felt cool air. The burning insides of her thighs felt some relief as stockings were pulled off.

Orihime didn't know how they'd reached the bed or even what was happening-not exactly-but the sense that she _should_ feel embarrassed or ashamed clung to her like an inconvenient piece of clothing that would soon be gone.

"I've never done this before," he whispered, and she did not believe him. His hands were too swift and too accurate as they removed her panties and found parts of her that craved his touch. Then she didn't care if he was lying-she trusted her own senses again. Her senses were all she trusted because they were her whole world, its axis lurching off balance with one desire after another. Her quickening breath, her clenching fingers, the pour of cold and wet and warm and wrong across her body defined her, and all she could do was hold onto Ulquiorra's arms and back and stray hairs at the nape of his neck as her senses overcame her.

The _pop_ deep inside her was so jolting that even though Orihime didn't make a sound, she was sure the girls sleeping down the hall and maybe even the neighbors had heard her

Ulquiorra breaking through her.

"Ulquiorra?" Orihime had been kicked out of her lust haze now. There was a little pain; there was the metallic scent of blood. She clutched a pair of shoulders as a body moved with a languorous but insistent rhythm against her body, and she wondered if some hugely significant meaning of the universe was going to outride her to the finish line of this experience. Or had the most important sensations already swept past?

She felt a little lonely. "Ulquiorra, can you hear me?" She was whispering but he was panting loudly. She tried to move her hips in sync with his but the vague ache down there didn't go away.

Then the discomfort of sex was overtaken by a feeling of pure terror. She was losing him again!

"Ulquiorra!" She gasped. "No! No!"

His body was disappearing like a ghost's, even as he moved inside her own body. He was becoming transparent, the flesh against hers colder to the touch.

He lifted his head to look at her. That usually inscrutable face looked young and vibrant, lips parted, almost-_did he look pleased?_

"Don't be afraid," he said and his voice was vanishing too. It sounded as if it spoke from another dimension. "You can always bring me back again."

And with that he was gone.

Gone. With no trace of reiatsu remaining. Even the blood on the sheets dried right away and Orihime was only left with the bewilderment of the experience as she lay there.

Just as when Tsukishima's blade had entered her, there was a vivid memory and no evidence to prove it was real: Orihime lay fully clothed on Kurosaki Ichigo's bed.

N_o, this isn't happening. I've been tricked._

Outside the bedroom window, the moon shone brightly. Orihime lay where she was for a long time and wondered about other times she had been in this room, about other feelings that had brought her here. Was Tsukishima playing with her senses or had her own senses been fooling her long before Tsukishima had interfered with them?

I _want so much._

What had Tsukishima done to her? Whatever it was … it had come after something Ulquiorra had done. In Hueco Mundo, Ulquiorra had seared a longing into Orihime's heart-a longing she felt even now, lying on the bed of Kurosaki Ichigo.

Orihime pushed one hand between her legs as her other arm rose towards the ceiling and her fingers stretched, reaching, reaching-

For the unknowable.

For the ineffable.

For the lover who never comes.

E_nd_

*Prompt from the UlquiHime Kink Meme: _Ulquiorra is a fullbringer and he should talk with Ichigo about something. He comes across Orihime on his way to visit Ichigo. Then, they go together only to find that Ichigo is not home. While they are waiting for Ichigo in Ichigo's room, Ulquiorra makes the first move that leads them to have sex on Ichigo's bed. It's up to the filler to decide if Rukia is in the closet at that time._


End file.
